Tomorrow (Thursday), Saint Lucia’s National Senior Men’s Football team takes on Guadeloupe in a home game of this season’s CONCACAF Nation’s League tournament, as part of the double-header at the Daren Sammy Cricket Ground [DSCG].
The double-header features Dominica vs. British Virgin Islands (BVI) is at 6.00 p.m. followed by Team Saint Lucia playing against Guadeloupe at 8.00 p.m.
The Saint Lucian contingent has been training with some rigorous exercise routines and hard work as they continue on the ‘journey’ to help elevate the status of football on the island while seeking to gain wider recognition on the global stage.
At a media briefing yesterday, President of the Saint Lucia Football Association [SLFA] Inc. Lyndon Cooper assured the players and technical unit that the SLFA will continue to do all within its purview to support the team and provide the resources to enable them to progress on a exciting journey.
Cooper said the association took a timely and decisive move to re-enter the Senior Men’s Regional tournament, even as the team was in transition. Simultaneously, he said, the decision also involved moving the Senior National Women’s team into the regional competition mode.
“We feel that the decision to re-enter Senior National Football at the regional and international level one year in advance is a decision that was well made outside the overall costs,” declared the SLFA president, while taking into account that it would cost the association over $3 million to prepare and harness the respective teams to compete.
Cooper noted that the SLFA is committed to meeting its short-term and long-term objectives and seeks cooperation and dedication from the players toward achieving the ultimate goal – of having a Saint Lucian team compete in a FIFA World Cup.
“Both national teams are about (achieving) results and not performances,” he added. “We have committed to investing no matter what the cost is and we are prepared to invest in both teams, but the results must be on the table…and we are going to do what it takes …to ensure that we meet our overall objective, both short-term and long-term.”
Cooper reiterated that the SLFA’s overall objective “is to develop the game and go to the next World Cup.”
He explained that the format in the regional ‘federation football’ has changed drastically and there are no longer stages such as Windward Islands football competitions, so, it requires a much more arduous task to compete in global soccer against teams that are seeded higher.
Set towards accomplishing that goal, the SLFA president stressed, “So we had to make the investment and adjustment…and rest assured that these are the discussions that we’ve been having with our technical team, continuously.”
While noting that a few more professional players have been added to the national setup in the thrust to ‘beef up’ the squad, Head Coach of the Senior Men’s National Team Stern John said the 23-member squad is all set to take on the challenge. He recalled that though Team 758 won its two previous encounters in the competition; vs. Sint Maarten 5-1, and vs. Saint Kitts 2-0, “It’s a different challenge for us now …and we have to stay focused as we continue our progress. It’s a journey that we’ve just begun and have to continue successfully.”
Stressing the necessity to build a ‘professional unit’ John stated that his initial task entailed “building a team to compete at the highest level”. He said the technical staff had to “chop and change” to get the right balance and it involved bringing in international players to elevate “our level of football”.
Added John: “I feel that we have the quality in Saint Lucia to play at the highest level …but we need to have our players more in that environment
“It’s been the first time in a couple of years that we have a local team training almost like a professional squad, and it’s a credit to the SLFA and the president that they allowed us to do that.”
Meanwhile, media reports indicate that the upcoming match between Team Saint Lucia and Guadeloupe has been billed as a highly rated encounter on the CONCACAF website, and from the September ‘window’ four Saint Lucian players were selected for the Concacaf Team line-up and they included; Vino Barlett, Gregson President, Ridel Stanislaus, and Dominic Poleon.
[R.A]